Vice President Carlos Mesa Gisbert, who tried unsuccessfully to prevent this move, given the excellent reputation of the departing Ombudswoman. In 2003, Ana Maria Romero completed her constitutional mandate as Ombudswoman, with a record that earned her widespread recognition and numerous national and international awards. In 2004 Romero created the UNIR Foundation (Fundación UNIR), a non-governmental organization that has since been working in the construction of mediation processes and promotion of a culture of peace in Bolivia through initiatives of dialogue, negotiation during conflicts, information and deliberation, which she directed until 2008. During the political crisis of 2007 and 2008, generated by the opposition of Bolivia's eastern Departments of Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija to the Government of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) and the Presidency of Evo Morales, the UNIR Foundation sponsored several workshops and initiatives for dialogue in these Departments, as well as in La Paz and El Alto, to bring these politically confrontational sectors, which held entrenched positions, closer together. Ana María Romero headed the UNIR Foundation until December 2008, when she retired to take a break and devote her time to writing a novel, which she would not be able to finish due to her entry into politics and her subsequent illness. Political life Ana Maria Romero was an active advocate of democracy and human rights in her country. In 1979 she interrupted her career as journalist to take up the post of Minister of Press and Information, during the brief Government of Walter Guevara. Guevara became Bolivia's President by constitutional succession in August 1979 but was overthrown by a military coup led by Colonel Alberto Natusch in November of that year in the so-called "All Saints Massacre", where more than 100 people were killed in a massive deployment of violence that showed outstanding brutality. During this period, Ana Maria Romero was given the task of coordinating with the national press and more than 100 international journalists that had arrived in the country to cover the Ninth General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS). Bolivia obtained a major diplomatic victory during this gathering by approving a declaration which recognized "the Bolivian maritime claim as a matter of hemispheric interest". When she assumed the Ministry of Press and Information portfolio, her father, Gonzalo Romero, was already Bolivia's Ambassador to the OAS. Father and daughter met in public service, where he gave an outstanding